My new bird feeder - Skywatch Friday

"That crazy lady staring at me through the bedroom window thinks I can't get to her bird feeder. I'm going to show her."

"This is way too easy."

"Oh, wait, I think I might fall."

Finally, a bird. But it's just an ole blue jay. He'll probably scare way all of the small cute birds.

Ibis on our neighbor's dock in the rain.

Our resident night heron comes to visit as the sun goes down.

Perfect ending to the weekend.

Yes, I made it way to easy for those squirrels. I put the bird feeder too close to the branch. I'm going to try and move it farther out and lower it. I might try and find something to put over the top so they can't slide down so easily. I know, squirrels always figure out a way. At one point I had one squirrel on the feeder and 3 others on the ground below it chowing down on the seed that had fallen. Any suggestions?

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Kapok Park after work

Little blue heron standing on the boardwalk rail. He didn't want to move. I finally walked around him.

"Yea! The kingfishers are back. Still haven't seen the one in my neighborhood yet but it's still early. Not a great shot because they are really skittish here.

Boring ole blue jay watching me.

Hawk flyby.

My first alligator sighting at this park.

Cute caterpillar.

Another walk around Kapok Park after work. It's getting dark earlier so I only had a little over an hour before the sun went down behind the trees. I was hoping to see the red tailed hawk again but could only find a red-shouldered hawk soaring overhead. Two kids on skateboards asked me if I had seen the alligator swimming in the middle of the lake. I'm thinking to myself  "In the 3 years I've been coming here I've never seen an alligator." I said to them "No, I haven't." They were so excited to point him out as he swam right towards the dock. It's amazing how alligators are so mesmerizing to kids. I don't know how long he's been in the lake. I always thought the baby duck count never seems to go down here like at other lakes. Maybe he's fairly new.

   Camera Critters

A Sunday in the backyard - Skywatch Friday

A hawk was sitting on my neighbor's sailboat in the morning.

Blue jay screaming at the hawk.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher sitting in the grapefruit tree. It's the first time I've seen a blue-gray in our backyard. I think he was watching the blue jay at the top of the tree.

Later, as the clouds moved in I noticed the downy woodpecker on the same (almost dead) grapefruit tree.

Another downy picture.

The resident osprey showed up later with a fish.

Creepy clouds moving in right before the sun went down.

Our grapefruit tree is going to have to go soon. It's about 75% dead. It covers around 25% of our backyard and has been there since the house was build back in the 60's. It's been great for shading part of the house and I'm going to miss it (except for picking up rotten grapefruit for half the year). I don't know what I want to replace it with. Something that's already half grown so we can get some shade fairly soon. We don't want another fruit tree since it's just too much work to pick up the fruit. Our soil is sandy and the tree would sit in between our house and the seawall. It would get lots of sun. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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After work walk at Kapok Park

Great blue heron hiding in the bushes. I think I woke him up from his nap.

Tiniest frog I've ever seen. This is blown up. I almost stepped on him.

Mallards walking around keeping an eye on me.

Blue jay with a nut.

Male grackle shining in the sun.

Another hot walk around Kapok Park after work. Kapok is a small park right in the middle of some neighborhoods off a busy road. It used to be a trailer park and was turned into a water management project. It's named after the tall kapok tree that is an emergent tree in the rainforest that grows tallest over all the other trees. I couldn't find any information on how Clearwater Florida got some of these tree. In the winter there's a lot of unusual wildlife there but in the summer it slows down a bit. There weren't too many people there as well. Things were pretty quiet while I was there.

Wild stuff at the zoo

Blue jay in the tree.

Cool grasshopper. The zoo is full of them.

Adult blue heron feeding baby that's not so little anymore.

Baby blue heron yelling for mom to go get more food.

Baby blue heron profile. It'll be leaving the nest soon.

One of the last baby moorhens to be born. There might still be a few stragglers.

On my trip to the zoo to see the spoonbills, I walked around and found a few interesting things. The zoo is full of grasshoppers right now. Some of them have a lot of color. The last of the baby blue herons are getting big. Soon the alligator exhibit will only have alligators in it. How boring. My plan is to check on the baby spoonbills one more time before they take off.  I'm not sure how old they get before they leave the nest. Hopefully, I'll have another week to catch them.

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Crescent Lake Park

Starling shining in the sun.

Female grackle with a juvenile.

Fat geese getting fed.

Juvenile white ibis downing a mouthful.

Foodfest at the ibis party.

Blue jay looking sad on the bench.

When it gets really I hot I tend to head for spots along the water to get the sea breeze. Before heading to the St. Petersburg Pier, I stopped at a nearby park. Crescent Lake Park is a small park near downtown St. Petersburg.  My last trip there was last spring when the baby geese were growing up. It looks like there weren't any baby geese this spring. People are always feeding them so they're pretty aggressive. I try and stay away from them. While I was walking around the lake, a lady and her daughter had a big loaf of bread and were feeding all of the animals at the park. The ibis were practically attacking each other for a slice of bread. Of course, they attacked the little girl as she was throwing out slices and finally she just threw the whole bag at them. This is why there are signs saying "Do not feed the wildlife." Oh well.

Rainy morning in a cemetery

Blue jay sitting on a snag.

Dove sitting on a grave marker.

Eagle sitting on the nest.

A pair of pileated woodpeckers sitting on a tree.

Pileated woodpecker sitting on a utility pole.

Two weekends ago we had nasty weather all weekend.  Saturday morning I woke up to dark gray skies. I checked the weather on line and it looked like I had until sometime around lunch before the rain hit. I decided to head down to the St. Petersburg cemetery to check on the eagle's nest. Only one of the eagles were present sitting on the nest. There were two other people there that had also stopped by. They both had heard there were babies but they were not big enough to see yet. Even though the other eagle did not show up while I was there, I saw several other birds. Three pileated woodpeckers stopped by all at one time. That's the most I have seen together. Two stayed together and the other was close by. After waiting around for over an hour for the other eagle, I decided to leave and head to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary before the rain hit. 

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Georgia birds and a chipmunk

Red bellied woodpecker  Yellow bellied sapsucker up in my in-laws' tree.

There were tons of these little birds high up in the trees. I think it's a type of warbler. It's almost impossible to get pictures of them. They don't stay still for a second.

Female cardinal.

Blue jay high up in the pine tree.

Chipmunk with a cheek full on my in-laws' back deck.

Hubby & I spent Halloween weekend in Atlanta with his family.  He was turning 50 and wanted to spend it with them. We got to Atlanta early Friday afternoon and as soon as I got out of the car I heard birds calling from everywhere. His parents have a large yard with old growth pine trees all around. After unloading the car, I spent an hour walking around the yard looking for birds with his mom. She said the woodpeckers have been annoying lately. They've been banging on the side of the house.  They're going to need to keep an eye on that so they don't get any real damage from them. My goal for this trip was to get a some shots of chipmunks. I only got the one above. I've never seen them in central Florida. My other goal was to get some shots of fall leaves. I have those to post later.